Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021 • Hacker News Board

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#51

Post by cynicalkane » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 3:45 PM UTC

anm89 wrote: post #39

fallingknife wrote: post #25

> Another initiative headed for mandate status is a school policy that no assignment can receive a grade of less than 50% > And my direct supervisor repeatedly demanded that I pace my classes for the benefit of the single student in each section who was struggling the most I don't understand school. Why do they do things like this? Who actually thinks this is a good idea? I've never met anyone who does. How have we g…

No one thinks it's a good idea for the students. They think it's a good idea for their career.

The system giving these rules is set up so the two are indistinguishable. Some people can't even tell the difference. Others can, but they keep quiet so their career isn't destroyed.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#52

Post by P0l83q4p1Hw3Ul » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 3:47 PM UTC

vore wrote: post #36

P0l83q4p1Hw3Ul wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only 2 articles by the author, so I wouldn't strongly associate them with the site. No information about author, and published on a site like that because such topics are forbidden, so I wouldn't say that's a good tool for judging the truthfulness/quality. Have to look at the details and see if they align with what is verifiable. Some of the claims can be verified by video footage that is widely available online. Man…

Ignoring the obvious white supremacist dogwhistling completely littered throughout their article, they literally allude to the 14 Words at the end! > But doing nothing means whites must condemn their own flesh and blood to the nightmare I’ve described — and we have a duty to protect the future for our children.

I don't see how that subtracts from the value of the claims that can be verified, just ignore biased claims like any other media.

I'm not familiar with the idea that it's bad for white people to want a good future for their children? Seems quite racist to me.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#53

Post by brighton36 » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 3:48 PM UTC

P0l83q4p1Hw3Ul wrote: post #22

mediumdeviation wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> American Renaissance (AR or AmRen) is a white supremacist website and former monthly magazine publication founded and edited by Jared Taylor. > The publication promotes pseudoscientific notions "that attempt to demonstrate the intellectual and cultural superiority of whites and publishes articles on the supposed decline of American society because of integrationist social policies." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Am…

Does that subtract from the value of the article? The question one might ask is, "did the author write this because they're racist, or are they just sharing their experience and no one else would dare publish it?" Given there are multiple ways of verifying the details, I'd go with "just sharing their experience".

You can know the enlightenment is over, when you read summaries like this. When we choose social proximity to (evil thing) over veracity of content, you can see how tribalism forms, in lieu of meritocracy.

The truth is probably racist. That's how the ship goes down.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#54

Post by newbie2020 » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 3:50 PM UTC

linuxftw wrote: post #10

Wow, lot's to unravel in this one. First, the kids are trying to skip out on mindless work like book reports. Most of the students aren't bright enough to fool the teacher in the anecdotes, but probably there are some that do. Next, there's the discipline issue. Yes, they stopped suspending kids in a lot of places because they realized those kids would just be left alone at home all day, and the only reason those kid…

You think homework is useless? That’s the main way to learn…

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#55

Post by JackFr » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 3:52 PM UTC

schoolchoice wrote: post #31

P0l83q4p1Hw3Ul wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who's responsibility is it to ensure that what is best for the management (state and district admin) is also what is best for student education? I'm not too familiar with the details of management here, but is it even possible for public schools (and other government operations) to have proper incentives given voters don't care about results? I suppose "school-choice", which happens to be vehemently opposed by Democr…

"School-choice" is great for optimizing local maximums at the expense of just about everyone else. Public education should focus on the lowest common denominators to maximize education per tax dollar. It's not the smart people with lack of opportunity that drag down society, it's the massive amount of undereducated adults that become dangerously suceptable to manipulation.

Not clear what your argument against school choice is.

Not sure what you mean by “optimizing local maximums at the expense of everything else”. It almost sounds like an argument but there’s no substance.

You claim that public education should focus on the lowest common denominator so we can avoid an underclass susceptible to manipulation. That’s both a weak justification to purposely damage public education and condescension shown by elites when poor people don’t vote the way “they should”.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#56

Post by rkk3 » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 3:52 PM UTC

brianwawok wrote: post #37

fallingknife wrote: post #25

> Another initiative headed for mandate status is a school policy that no assignment can receive a grade of less than 50% > And my direct supervisor repeatedly demanded that I pace my classes for the benefit of the single student in each section who was struggling the most I don't understand school. Why do they do things like this? Who actually thinks this is a good idea? I've never met anyone who does. How have we g…

No child left behind. It’s been ruled that it’s better that all students get to 20-80% knowledge then some get 100% and some get 0%. Which is why many people choose to go to private schools if you want to not be limited by this.

> Which is why many people choose to go to private schools if you want to not be limited by this.

Familiar with expensive Private schools Household names send their kids too in CA. It's generally harder to fail a student, sometimes explicitly impossible & against school policy.

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#57

Post by geofft » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 3:52 PM UTC

P0l83q4p1Hw3Ul wrote: post #41

geofft wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's p-hacking for prejudice, though. Let's say that there are two races, orange and blue. Alice is orange and goes to a majority-blue church and gets mistreated because of her race. Bob is blue and goes to a majority-orange church and gets mistreated because of his race. Alice and Bob are both upset about their experiences. They submit articles to "The American Truth," an orange-supremacist newspaper whose stated mi…

I like your explanation, but it seems you're arguing in favor of reading "The American Truth", since it will give you both perspectives if you're currently only reading blue-supremacist newspapers? And you'll be fine as long as you recognize the biases on both sides and verify claims.

Not really, because the blue-supremacist newspapers won't publish any of the other perspectives - they're also going to say that the blue man cannot survive in a society with orange people. You won't hear any of the stories where things are fine.

The problem with p-hacking is you need to honestly report the negative results too, not that you need to also find "statistically significant" results reporting the opposite effect.

But yes, if you consciously make an effort to find extremist sources from all possible points of view (and in the real world, that's rarely the same as "both points of view"), and if you make a point of reading them all critically and skeptically, then that is likely to get you a more balanced perspective about things on the margins. Can you find a story about life as a black teacher in a majority-white school published by a black supremacist/separatist organization?

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#58

Post by WanderPanda » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 3:54 PM UTC

brianwawok wrote: post #37

fallingknife wrote: post #25

> Another initiative headed for mandate status is a school policy that no assignment can receive a grade of less than 50% > And my direct supervisor repeatedly demanded that I pace my classes for the benefit of the single student in each section who was struggling the most I don't understand school. Why do they do things like this? Who actually thinks this is a good idea? I've never met anyone who does. How have we g…

No child left behind. It’s been ruled that it’s better that all students get to 20-80% knowledge then some get 100% and some get 0%. Which is why many people choose to go to private schools if you want to not be limited by this.

I don‘t see the causal relationship between the 100%ers getting 80% and the 0%ers suddenly getting 20%

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#59

Post by Skunkleton » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 3:56 PM UTC

avanai wrote: post #44

The umlauts for quotes thing is really interesting. I don’t know why the author went for “these kids haven’t seen enough ‘proper’ text” rather than, say “these kids weren’t taught typing and discovered a creative solution that communicates their intent well.”

That one left me scratching my head. A physical keyboard has a key specifically for a quote, and entering an umlaut isn’t straightforward on iOS. International keyboard maybe?

Re: Life as a public school teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area in 2021

#60

Post by api » Sat, Jun 19, 2021, 3:56 PM UTC

nerdponx wrote: post #32

fallingknife wrote: post #25

> Another initiative headed for mandate status is a school policy that no assignment can receive a grade of less than 50% > And my direct supervisor repeatedly demanded that I pace my classes for the benefit of the single student in each section who was struggling the most I don't understand school. Why do they do things like this? Who actually thinks this is a good idea? I've never met anyone who does. How have we g…

I don't get it either. People have learning and thinking differences, we know that and have known it for years. Accommodating those differences is important. Living out a real-life version of Harrison Bergeron is not the only way to do it.

Yeah but a real life version of Harrison Bergeron may be the cheapest lowest effort easiest to bureaucratize way to do it.

Actually understanding and then adjusting to differences in learning style, cultural background, etc. is really hard work and is really hard to scale. It’s an art form not something that can be mass produced or reduced to a simple set of rules.